Frank Bruni: Greed and the Presidency

[Liza's Headband]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 10:31am

Thank you, Frank Bruni, for showing that there is one common thread making ALL POLITICIANS THE EXACT SAME, REGARDLESS OF PARTY AFFILIATION: Greed ($$$$), which only leads to corruption. A 'must read' for those who ignore me or try to shrug off Erik's posts.  

 

It’s a discomfiting spectacle — and a dissonant one. So many of the candidates who raise their hands for “public service,” in their self-congratulating parlance, aren’t at peace with the economic humility that the phrase connotes. For more than a few of them, “public service” is a fig leaf over private cupidity. In many cases, it’s a prelude to a lucrative payday that they’re counting on.

They talk about their connection to “everyday Americans” (Hillary Clinton) and to laborers who “sweat through their clothes” (Huckabee) even as they reach for, and insist on, a much higher style. That’s partly why their words can ring so pat, so hollow. It’s one explanation for voters’ cynicism.

While we in the news media have long wrung our hands about the ways in which campaign financing warps the political process, what about the ways in which politicians’ frenzied competition for donations warps their views of the world? They now spend so much time among the country’s plutocrats, sowing friendship wherever the funds are, that their bearings and their yardsticks surely change, as must their sense of their station.

NYT Op-Ed: Greed and the Presidency

[Kad]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 10:46am

For someone who regularly hounds posters on this board and erroneously tried to identify the real-world identity of a poster- and thereby posting information about someone who is *not a member here*- you're certainly hung up on the idea of "corruption."

[Liza's Headband]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 11:12am

Based on your inability to actually comment on the substance of Mr. Bruni's op-ed, I'll take it that you intended to vote for one of the greedy cronies mentioned in his piece. So disappointing. 

[Islander_fan]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 11:30am

Headband

 

Do you remember that time that you said that anything that happens online isn't real because of the fact that it happened online? Remember how I threw that theory back in your face by saying that if things online are not real, then you should give that speech to parents who's children died as a result of suicide from cyber bullying? After all, it's not a real thing because it happened online. Sad to say, that thread is a thing of the past.

 

However, the very accurate reason for me bringing that up is that for someone who has said that what goes on online doesn't matter because it's not a real thing, you're taking a mighty big interest in what people say online or even who they post as. 

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 11:50am

Preach.

[Kad]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 12:10pm

"Based on your inability to actually comment on the substance of Mr. Bruni's op-ed.."

No one is ever going to actually comment on anything you post, because you have actively been poisoning your own well on here for a long time.

And now that your latest tract is "CORRUPTION SULLIES THE HALLS OF THE CAPITOL,"- which you manage to distill down to a smug, "Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos,"-  the cognitive dissonance you exhibit is even MORE glaring.

Updated On: 5/18/15 at 12:10 PM

[Kad]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 12:20pm

Also, the op-ed doesn't actually support your "THEY'RE ALL THE SAME" madness mantra.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 12:44pm

When Bruni is off, he is very, very tone deaf. His article concludes:

Funnily, Scott Walker made news recently because he’s an island of relative penury in these opulent seas. His parents live with him. He is saddled with car and tuition payments. He owes money on a credit card from Sears.

And his overall net worth is a negative $72,500.

While a few critics cited this as proof of fiscal irresponsibility, it made me feel a little warm and fuzzy about him — for the first time. Come to lunch in the Times cafeteria, Governor Walker. The chicken salad sandwich is on me.

Bruni neglects to put Scott Walker's finances in perspective: He is currently the candidate favored by the Koch brothers.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 12:51pm

He has a car payment?!  Stars, they're just like us!

Updated On: 5/18/15 at 12:51 PM

[FishermanBob]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 1:13pm

Anyone who still shops at Sears does not have the judgment to be President.

[Liza's Headband]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 1:16pm

PJ - his point about Walker may be valid, but we differ on that point. He would undoubtedly become just as corrupt as the others in due time while serving as the President of the United Lobbyists & Special Interest Groups of America. Err, I mean United States of America. 

He has a <I>car payment</I>?!  Stars, they're just like us!

Stars usually pay for their cars unlike Rubio and Clinton, who received their cars as donations from auto dealership "buddies." 

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 1:19pm

I believe FindingNamo has had a "buddy" at an auto dealership for many years now.

Donations, I imagine, are freely given and received.

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 1:29pm

As my current profile picture would suggest, I do not think they are "all the same."

[Liza's Headband]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 2:03pm

Oh, Erik. I thought it was a given... I probably should have noted the exception of Sanders. Anyone who fights against the Super PACs and lobbyists like he does definitely deserves to be set apart from the others.  My apologies.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 2:34pm

Still so unable to admit that the appointees these presidents make are not the same at all. So so unable.

It is remarkable watching a barely closeted libertarian attack capitalism because, you know, that's what the problem is, right?

[Liza's Headband]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 4:11pm

The corruption of government is the problem. It's that simple. Time to take the $$$ out of politics. 

[kdogg36]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 4:18pm

Well, this totally out-of-the-closet libertarian doesn't see the close partnership of business and government as "capitalism." Capitalism means government doesn't dictate what businesses need to do, but also that businesses don't control government.

Anyhow, I'm much more alarmed by civil rights and foreign policy issues than economic ones these days, so I'm sympathetic to the notion that Democrats are less bad in a meaningful way. But I'd like to know how to forge a path to getting good candidates, not just less bad ones.

[Liza's Headband]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 4:23pm

Be careful, kdogg. Centrists and Libertarians don't exist in Namo's world. It is either blue or red and left or right in his universe. There is NO POSSIBLE WAY someone can actually vote or live based solely on each individual issue. You MUST be affiliated with one party or the other... even if you don't admit it!!! 

[kdogg36]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 5:42pm

I don't think anyone would consider me a centrist, unless you average out the positions I share with the extreme left and right. :)

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 5:55pm

Of course they exist, in the same way cats who think they're dogs exist. 

You headband are soooooooo not a centrist and you know it. 

[Liza's Headband]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 7:32pm

Dear Asswipe,

I favor gun control, marriage equality, legalization of marijuana, campaign finance reform, criminal justice reform and many other views considered "liberal." I also favor tax reform, the death penalty, limited government intrusion, school choice and several other views considered "conservative." I am, by all definitions, what is called a Minivan Moderate; otherwise known as a Centrist. Furthermore, I am a registered Independent. 

Cheers,

LH

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 8:47pm

Why should anybody care what Namo thinks about their political positions?

[SNAFU]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 9:02pm

Perhaps someone who seems to have a cyber chubby for him?

 

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 9:55pm

"Minivan Moderate" would be a terrible drag name.

[Liza's Headband]

Posted: 5/18/15 at 10:49pm

Why should anybody care what Namo thinks about their political positions?

I care when an individual attempts to suggest that the mindset I most identify with doesn't exist. The world is not black & white (or blue & red). There are people in the middle; they actually exist. They're the ones who are most valued by candidates in elections. They're the ones who are always courted. For a man as "cultured" as Namo, I am slightly surprised that he refuses to acknowledge their existence.